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Nominate Your Favorite Books of 2008 for the Teen Choice Book Award!

In association with the Children’s Book Council (CBC), Teenreads.com is giving you a very special opportunity to let your voices be heard by telling us your five favorite books of 2008. The five titles that receive the most “votes” will serve as the finalists for the CBC’s 2009 Teen Choice Book Award. Later we will tell you where you can go vote for them once the five finalists have been announced. The winner will be announced in May 2009.

All you have to do is fill out the form found here between now and January 31, 2009. Your top five selections may come from the list we’ve provided below, or you can vote for titles not on the list. Important Note: Please be sure that the book(s) was released for the first time in 2008; this means that paperbacks originally published as hardcovers will not be accepted. If you’re uncertain about a book’s release date, we suggest you search for that title on Amazon.com.

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The next time a parent or teacher yells at you for text messaging too much, then you can tell them this story.

Two doctors used text messaging to perform life-saving surgery on a 16-year-old in Congo. The young man’s arm had been shot off, and the wound became infected. To save him, a doctor would need to amputate the remains of his arm and shoulder. The only available surgeon had never performed this very risky surgery, but he knew another surgeon in England who had. So, they communicated through text messages before and during the surgery. The surgeon in England texted step-by-step instruction to the surgeon in Africa, the operation succeeded, and the young man lived!